BookBrowse Reviews Almost Life by Kiran Millwood Hargrave

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In this sprawling novel of heartbreak and redemption, two young people spend a passionate Parisian summer together and then weave in and out of each other's lives in the decades to come.

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When Erica and Laure meet on the steps of the Sacré-Coeur Basilica in 1978, Erica is eighteen, fresh out of school and spending a summer in Paris before starting university back in England. She longs for a stereotypical Parisian summer, filled with red wine and French friends, students at the Sorbonne, perhaps, with whom she can converse about art and literature, and she fantasizes about having a fling with a French man. Laure, a bohemian, communist art history student at the Sorbonne, seems like the gateway to everything Erica has dreamt about, but when she kisses Erica, Erica is surprised by how right it feels. She considers, for the first time, that marrying and having children, the only future she has ever imagined, might not be the only future for her.

Erica and Laure spend a passionate summer together, wandering through the city and gazing at Monet's Water Lilies (see Beyond the Book), but they know their romance has an expiration date. When Erica reminds Laure that she has to return to England to pursue a creative writing course, Laure halfheartedly asks her to stay, but Erica brushes off the invitation as a fantasy. They both know that their summer romance should only be an interlude to their real lives.

When Erica returns to England, however, both women are despondent, and it soon becomes clear that their relationship was never really a passing fling to either of them. But life goes on, and Erica eventually immerses herself in her studies, and then a new girlfriend, and then a new boyfriend. But Laure is always there, always at the back of her mind and often at the forefront. Meanwhile, even after falling into a period of depression and alcoholism after Erica's departure and eventually finding love and sobriety with an older woman, Laure always thinks of Erica.

Laure and Erica continue to weave in and out of each other's lives in the decades that follow, and their relationship takes on new shapes—friends, penpals, lovers again. Erica's love for Laure is complicated by her bisexuality and her partner Anthony. She knows that a simple life with a husband and children wouldn't even have to be a choice, but rather something she could easily fall into. Choosing Laure, on the other hand, would require a strength and determination she's not sure she possesses. For Laure, who's known since childhood that she is a lesbian, her love of Erica is more straightforward, but the rest of her life feels complicated, and she struggles to cope with her own addiction, her ailing father, and a gay best friend slowly dying of AIDS.

As Laure and Erica's lives unfold, separately and together, both women are aware of a shadowy presence of the life they would be living, had they made different choices. That life doesn't feel quite real, but neither does the one they end up living. Hovering between these two possibilities, unwilling to let go of either, Laure and Erica continue to fight and make up, pushing each other away and finding their way back to each other, hurting their loved ones and themselves over and over, unable to fully commit to a life either together or apart.

Almost Life is a testament to the strength of love, but also a sobering reminder of the consequences of letting that love stagnate and fester like a wound. The bond between Erica and Laure is a palpable and aching thing; it's the beating heart of this novel, and perhaps not since Connell and Marianne in Sally Rooney's Normal People have readers found a dysfunctional literary couple to root for with such conviction. The obstacles to their relationship are real and convincing, driven by factors both internal and external, as Hargrave expertly swerves the sort of avoidable and inane roadblocks that can easily frustrate readers. Almost Life is a tender and romantic book, but also a deeply sad one, that quietly explores the inherent tragedy of a life almost lived.

This review first ran in the April 22, 2026 issue of BookBrowse Recommends.